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July Newsletter
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for the patients of The Roseland Surgeries
Forthcoming Bank Holidays:
Monday 27th August – Surgery CLOSED
IMPORTANT CHANGE TO ORDERING YOUR REPEAT MEDICATION:
The Dispensary team is finding it very difficult to keep up with the demand for repeat medication. It is therefore necessary to increase the time frame for the ordering process.
We are now requesting that patients allow THREE WORKING DAYS for their medication to be processed instead of the previous two working days. This will not only allow an extra day for the dispensary team to deal with the volume of work, but it will allow and additional day for deliveries of drugs to arrive and improve patient safety as the team is not rushing to fulfil demand.
Please remember to order your medication in time to accommodate this request – and don’t forget to allow an additional day or two if you need your medication delivering to one of our branch sites.
This request has been agreed by the Roseland Surgeries Patient Group in anticipation of notifying our wider patient population.
Text Messaging Reminder Service
Patients may be aware that a few weeks ago, we moved to a new computer clinical system. This offers us much greater functionality than we had in the past, and one such function is the ability to send text message reminders to patients for their appointments. This would mean that the day before your appointment, you would get a short message from the surgery giving you the appointment details. You would then have an opportunity to contact the surgery if you decided you couldn’t make that appointment, or no longer needed it. We are hoping that patients will find this reminder service very helpful.
Ultimately, we will also be able to send you short messages to let you know that things like annual flu clinics are available to book. It will be a few more weeks yet before we can switch this application on, but we are hopeful that patients will find it beneficial.
We cannot, however, assume that you are happy for us to send you a text message and to that end, we require your explicit consent to receive text messages. If you would like to benefit from this service, please could you let a receptionist know by completing a very short form that you will find at the bottom of this newsletter? We will also have a supply of these in each of the surgeries.
This would also be a good time to let us know if you have an email address if you haven’t already done so. Again, emailing patients is becoming more and more popular, but we need to be sure that the email address is accessible only by the patient, or their representative, to ensure that confidentiality of patient data is maintained.
Do you need vaccinations for your holiday?
A patient has asked me to outline the process for updating their vaccination status ahead of a long holiday abroad. We do have a lengthy process which may seem, on the surface, to be administratively ‘top-heavy’ so I thought it might be helpful to give you some insight into why we ask the questions that we do.
The first point of call is usually a patient contacting us to ask if they need vaccinations for their holidays. The first question we must ask is when are you travelling? The reason we ask this is because most vaccines need at least 6-8 weeks to get you up to full immunity. If you have internet access, we can direct you to the surgery website to complete a Travel Questionnaire and a link to an organisation called MASTA which provides up to date and accurate recommendations for immunisations for travel. You are also able to complete an itinery of your travels on this website which can be useful for planning.
The Travel Questionnaire asks such things as whether you’re staying in a hotel, or camping; how long is your holiday? And what activities are you undertaking? The reason we ask this is because if you are staying in a hotel in a resort, your vaccination requirements may be less than if you were backpacking around Europe or working on a kibbutz !
Both the questionnaire and the MASTA form need to come back to the surgery before we book you an appointment – they can be handed in, posted, or emailed (letters.portscatho@nhs.net)
All the information you provide is really very helpful to the nurses who will then, upon receipt of the information, determine what vaccinations are recommended and if any are deemed to be essential. They will compare what is suggested with what is stored in your medical record and work out if you need a full course of immunisations or perhaps just a booster. Some vaccinations are in courses of two or three, which must be given at least 4 weeks apart – hence the need for as much notice as possible.
Most vaccines are available from the surgery and we can let you know in advance if there are any charges to pay. We need to point out though that Yellow Fever can only be given at a registered centre so we would need to direct patients to the travel clinic at Probus Surgery to have this done if this is needed for your travel.
As you might understand, all of this takes time and if we need to administer more than one vaccine, or you need a specific course to ensure immunity, the longer we have to do this, the better all round.
We do appreciate that this is time-consuming and can seem unwieldy, but by allowing plenty of time to go through the process, we ensure you have adequate protection so you can enjoy your travels safely.
A new GP
We are very pleased to inform patients that
Dr Mark Stephen is now working with us for two days a week (Mondays and Tuesdays) with an extra Thursday morning here and there. Dr Stephen will cover St Mawes and Portscatho as Dr Crouse used to do.
Dr Stephen qualified in Manchester in 1994 and has interests in interests in minor surgery, cardiology and musculoskeletal medicine. Outside of work he spends time with his two children and enjoys playing golf , kitesurfing and sailing.
Keep your medication safe
A child in Cornwall sadly died due to a fentanyl patch belonging to the parent attaching to the child’s skin. This is a sobering reminder of the importance of patients keeping their medicines out of reach and sight of children. If you are prescribed strong pain-relieving patches, please be aware that co-sleeping with your children is a risk. Please remember to dispose of patches where children cannot access them (e.g. putting them in a bin that a child can easily access the contents is risky) and please do NOT share your prescribed medication with anyone else
Resuscitation – a ‘how-to’ guide
Last year, we featured details of a video that can take you through a critical event, and performing basic resuscitation. It’s always good to refresh our memory on something as important as this and so we’re publishing the link again here:
You can click into the video and it takes you through an event where you have to use CPR/resus on a person – as if you were there at the actual event. You can even score your performance and see how you compare against friends and family!
Nicola Davies
Practice Manager
Dr. Will Hynds MA MB BChir MRCGP DRCOG DCH
Dr. Terese Tubman BMed MRCGP DipFFP
Dr Jonathan Jacoby MB BCh BSc (Hons) MRCGP
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(Please hand in at reception when completed)